


Study-Break

by beetle



Category: Dead Man on Campus (1998)
Genre: M/M, Post-Movie(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-20
Updated: 2013-05-20
Packaged: 2017-12-12 10:50:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/810740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beetle/pseuds/beetle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Coop is whumming while Josh is trying to study.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Study-Break

**Author's Note:**

> Notes/Spoilers/Warnings: Spoilers for the movie.

“Coop?”  
  
There's no appreciable pause in the eery sound that's grating on Josh's nerves, then: “Yuh?” In a distracted, irritated voice, and  _it_  starts up again.   
  
Cooper  _couldn't_  be unaware that he's making the world's most annoying noise--while Josh is trying to study for midterms, no less--could he?   
  
Wait--of course he could. He's Cooper Frederickson, the guy who still occasionally asks Josh how his astrology classes are going.  
  
Sighing, Josh closes his abnormal psych textbook, using his highlighter as a bookmark, and turns to confront his roommate.   
  
Hands laced behind his head as he reclines on the bed-- _Josh_ 's bed, as the concepts of 'boundaries' and 'personal space' are as alien to Cooper as the concept of sobriety once was--Cooper's cheeks are puffed out, his lips pursed as he gazes absently at the ceiling. From those lips issues the creepy UFO sound that's been distracting Josh for the past five minutes.  
  
“What the hell is that noise?” Not what Josh meant to ask, but that's life with Cooper. Nothing ever turns out as planned.  
  
“I call it 'whumming'. It's a combination of whistling and humming . . . cool, hunh?” Cooper's dark eyes slide away from the ceiling to meet Josh's squarely. It's impossible for Josh to stay annoyed with him when there's eye contact involved, and they both know that.  
  
“Cool? Try creepy.” Josh stands up and Cooper's eyes linger briefly on the latest hideous sweater from Indiana, down the mostly shapeless cargo pants to beat-up tennis shoes. Then slowly back up. When he meets Josh's eyes again the smile softens, becomes almost apologetic, and Josh's suggestion that Coop practice his whumming in the dorm commons dies on his lips. “Where'd you even learn to do that?”  
  
That easy smile threatens to stretch from ear to ear. “I'm self-taught. Gotta keep myself entertained somehow while my best friend is being all studious and boring.” Cooper's wounded pout is only half-joking.  
  
“Well, you've certainly chosen a worthwhile pursuit.”  
  
“I believe the correct term is  _calling_ ," Cooper says in tones so lofty, he may actually be serious. Sometimes it's difficult even for Josh to tell when his roommate's truly delusional or just fucking with him. " _I_  should be the lead singer of Kiss My Ass, not that show-tune singing hack.”  
  
Josh rolls his eyes. Even after a year, Cooper's still got Matt Noonan issues. It helps that Matt left Daleman, but what doesn't help so much? KMA's debut album going triple platinum.   
  
 _Sperm_  is still hanging steady in MTV's video countdown.  
  
“Hmm.” Josh drifts over to his bed, hands in his pockets. Reality checks rarely work with Cooper, but appealing to his distaste for manual labor does. "How many field assignments would your dad send you on next summer if you flunked sophomore year because you were pursuing a career in music?”  
  
Cooper shudders and stops whumming again, his eyes going back to the ceiling. “Probably more than I got sent on for being with you.”  
  
As bad as he feels for Cooper, the idea of his roommate scrubbing toilets is more than a little funny, and Josh has to laugh. “You  _have_  told him we're not actually a couple, right?”  
  
“Because that works so well with our friends and peers?” Cooper snorts. “Besides, no one can _tell_  Flushells anything. You know how he is. . . .”  
  
“Yeah.” Josh does indeed know. Mr. Frederickson has only eased up on Cooper slightly in the past year. After their disastrous first semester--during which Cooper had heroically saved his supposed boyfriend's life--Cooper's grades had risen to mediocre and stayed firmly there, due mostly to Josh keeping after him to attend classes and study.  
  
Asshole he may be, but one thing Mr. Frederickson isn't is stupid. As long as the heir to the Frederickson Toilet Cleaning empire is showing no signs of reverting to his old slacker ways, Josh and Cooper's 'relationship' is tolerated.   
  
Mr Frederickson's even stopped throwing Josh out of the room on his occasional visits, merely giving him a wearily dismissive look before turning his attention entirely to Cooper. But it's obvious he's not too sure what to make of this unusually productive phase of his son's mostly unproductive life. Hell, none of them know what to make of it--especially Cooper.   
  
Who's whumming even louder than before.  
  
“Why don't you get out?” Josh suggests, mostly altruistically. Cooper's been partying less than hearty lately, when he parties at all, and if there's one thing Josh knows, it's that Coop's gotta party like birds gotta to fly. “Zeke and the guys are gonna hit that Morency Hall kegger and get smashed tonight. Maybe you should go . . . have fun, unwind. Even Pickle's going.”  
  
Cooper smiles a little. At some point, their other roommate had stopped being an insurance policy and become a friend. “Good for him. He needs to cut loose even more than  _you_  do. But I don't feel like getting wasted at some frat party.”  
  
 _Ohh-kay_. “Ohh-kay. Um . . . you could stay in, do some bong hits--” but Josh doesn't get to finish the suggestion before Cooper's making a face. “No bong hits, either?”  
  
“No bong hits.”  
  
"You could commandeer Pickle's blender and make frozen margaritas?"  
  
"Meh."  
  
Josh backs away from his own bed till the backs of his knees hit Coop's, and he sits down. “Alright, who are you and what've you done with my best friend?”  
  
The smile becomes a grin and the whumming falters for a moment before stopping completely. “You're a funny man, Josh.” But his tone is more wistful than amused.  
  
“Laugh-a-minute, that's me.” Josh studies Cooper's profile for awhile. Knows Cooper knows he's being studied. But Cooper's used to being stared at and pondered, for one reason or another. And anyway this isn't the first time Josh has stared in an effort to figure out what's going on in that half-baked brain. “Listen, Coop--” he starts, but Cooper cuts him off.  
  
“Have you heard from Rachel since last summer?”  
  
Blinking at the non sequitur, Josh realizes he'll  _never_  be able to predict the twists and turns of Cooper's mind. That's a comforting thought for many reasons, but occasionally frustrating, too. “Yeah, she writes every couple of weeks. She's having a great time at Eton and the classes are challenging.”  
  
“Sounds really . . . super,” Cooper says with massive amounts of fake sincerity, and just a hint of satisfaction. After their initial meeting--and even after he'd 'saved' Josh's life--Rachel never had much use for Cooper Frederickson. Or vice versa.  
  
Josh's 'attempted suicide' and subsequent rescue by Cooper had only given credence to the rumors that'd already been flying around Daleman about the nature of their friendship. Nothing Rachel and Josh said--none of the many girls Cooper slept with--could change even their friends' minds, let alone the minds of the entire student body and faculty.  
  
Though it'd stopped bothering Josh after awhile, it hadn't ever set well with Rachel. Unsurprisingly, everyone thinking she was Josh's beard had been a major factor in their break-up.  
  
“She seems really happy, now.”  _Happier than I ever made her,_  Josh thinks with regret that's fleeting, at best. He stretches out on Cooper's bed with a sigh. The pillow smells of aftershave, shampoo, and very faintly of pot. Good smells . . .  _Cooper_ -smells. “She's thinking about staying after the semester is over.”  
  
“What about you?”  
  
“What  _about_  me?”  
  
“I thought--once she was done finding herself, or whatever the hell she thinks she's doing a thousand miles away from you, she'd come back to Daleman and you guys'd be all. . . .” Cooper trails off, but is probably making a hand gesture that'd turn Josh five shades of red.  
  
"Rachel and I broke up months ago.”  
  
“Get real, Josh. She was nuts about you, and you--” Cooper's words are impatient and annoyed, but his tone is soft, sad. “You really, really liked her.”  
  
“ _Was_  and  _liked_. Past tense. We're still friends, but we're--over each other.”  
  
“Are you?”   
  
“Yes.”  
  
Cooper whums for a few seconds, then snorts. “I hope you appreciate what a selfless friend I am. Trying to make nice with her for your sake was physically exhausting.”  
  
“She said the same thing about you.”  
  
“She would,” Cooper mutters darkly. "Just you watch, when she realizes what a mistake she's made, she's gonna come crawling back to you. And you're gonna fall for her again.”  
  
“No, I'm not! And  _she_ 's not! She's been dating a guy in the international program! He's from Australia, he surfs, and he maintains the UK equivalent of a 4.0. Even if she comes back to Daleman, I don't think there'll be crawling, Coop.”  
  
“Whatever. Rebound-guy's got an accent and nerd-cred? BFD. He's still a rebound guy. You and Rachel just broke up--”  
  
“Seven months ago!”  
  
“My point is, love doesn't just go away. It's funny like that.” Cooper sighs and Josh's bed creaks as he sits up. “You'd be pretty shocked if you knew some of the things--some of the  _people_  I've done, just to convince myself I was over someone when I totally wasn't over them at all.”   
  
Josh glances over at Cooper, and finds that for once, he's the one being observed. With pillow-hair and without his glasses, Cooper looks younger and more vulnerable than his roommate is used to seeing him. Which makes Josh flush and say the first thing that pops into his head.  
  
“We've been roommates for a year. Nothing about you would shock me, Coop.”  
  
“You sure?” And there's something in Cooper's eyes--restlessness, frustration, anxiety-- _something_  Josh can't quite put a name to.  
  
“I--I guess, I mean . . . what, is there something you wanna tell me?”  
  
He doesn't answer and the silence between them draws out--becomes charged and expectant. Why and with what, Josh doesn't know, but it's making him nervous and a little scared. He opens his mouth to ask Cooper what shocking things or people he's done lately, but what comes out instead is:  
  
“You really think that she--that  _anyone_  could carry a torch for  _me_?”  
  
Cooper blinks and that something in his eyes is shuttered. "When she sees you again, she's gonna realize you're not the kind of guy who's easy to get over.”  
  
 _I'm not?_  he wonders, wants to ask, but can't quite. Not when Cooper's this worried about something Josh'd honestly never given a thought to.  
  
“Well, thanks. But even if that's true, Rachel and I are over,” he says again and it has the weight of a promise to it. “We aren't right for each other--”  
  
“You really aren't.”   
  
“--and we both know that, now. Which is why we're friends, and nothing more. That's all we'll ever be.”  
  
For some reason, he expects Cooper to ask him if he's sure. But Cooper never does what's expected of him. Instead he smiles, running a hand over his spiky dark hair, and stands up. Stretches so that his Daleman t-shirt pulls up slightly to show a pale, flat swatch of stomach and a faint trail of hair that presumably continues past the waistband of his pants. . . .  
  
A few moments of silent musing and Josh realizes that not only has the stretching stopped, but he's been staring at Cooper's fly.  
  
He glances up to see if Cooper noticed the stare or its direction--  
  
\--and of course Cooper noticed, if that surprised look on his face is anything to go by. He's noticed and will shortly start inferring . . . something.  
  
Not that there's something to be inferred. Just an unfortunate--and accidental--mental vacation in the general direction of his best friend's crotch. That's not so odd, is it? Considering how much time Josh spends staring at Cooper, that he would somehow manage to never stare, even accidentally, at any one area of Cooper is a statistical improbability, isn't it?  
  
“Hey--Earth to Josh? Come in, Josh?”  
  
“I wasn't star--um, huh?” Josh tries to sit up as Cooper sits down next to him, but the sudden hand on his chest, gentle though it is, keeps him in place.  
  
“You just spaced out on me--been doing that a lot, lately. Maybe you've been studying too much.” The hand on his chest is moving slowly, comfortingly back and forth, and though Josh is used to Cooper touching him more than is strictly necessary, he  _isn't_  used to looking into Cooper's eyes without a barrier of glass between them while said touching occurs.   
  
It's kinda jarring.  
  
“There's no such thing as too much studying,” he asserts, but weakly. It seems kind of hypocritical to extol the virtues of a strict study-regimen when five minutes ago, he was trying to talk Cooper into going drinking or bringing his bong out of semi-retirement. “I've gotta stay on track, Coop. You know that.”  
  
“No one said anything about going off your track, Josh, just--” Cooper's hand stills, resting over Josh's heart for a moment, solid and warm even through the hideous sweater. “Take a brief detour. You're, like, the most focused person on the planet, and all that focus? Has drained your brain. Just so happens I know the best cure for brain-drain.”  
  
“Uh--bong hits? Shots?” It's hard to think with Cooper rubbing his chest like he's a big cat. Most of the suggestions his brain comes up with are uselessly, alarmingly x-rated. “M-margaritas?”  
  
That mischievous glint in Cooper's eyes--the one he used to get before suggesting all of the above, or simply producing rolling papers and an intent-to-distribute sized baggie of kind--has taken on a whole new dimension. A dimension that's making Josh want to arch up into the touch, maybe push Coop's hand a bit lower.  
  
 _No--this is crazy! Crazier than Buckley Schrank's conspiracy theories--crazier, even, than crazy Cliff O'Malley! I_ can't _be seeing what I think I'm seeing, wanting what I think I'm wanting--_  
  
Yes, crazier than Buckley or Cliff, crazier than Cooper looking at him  _that_  way, would be _wanting_  Cooper to look at him the way Cooper almost certainly  _is_  looking at him.  
  
Craziest of all is what that look--that thousand-watt smile is doing to Josh's insides. He'd never _noticed_  that he'd noticed the way Cooper's eyes seem to twinkle when he's happy, or the way his lips curve just so. . . .  
  
Those lips move, and it takes Josh a second to pull himself together and stop staring at Cooper's mouth so he can make sense of the words that just came out of it.   
  
When he does it's like a dash of tepid water. “Uh . . . study-break?”  
  
“Mmhm. Good for what ails ya, Big Brain,” Cooper promises with a final pat to Josh's chest. He reaches for his glasses on the night table. Pulls them on and stands up again. Suddenly Josh isn't sure of what he thinks or feels--or even if he was just imagining that look.  
  
Then Cooper extends a hand. Josh takes it without thought, and is pulled to his feet. Once there, Cooper doesn't seem to be in any rush to let go. He searches Josh's eyes as if there's a puzzle in them he's finally close to figuring out.  
  
"You, uh, should catch up with Zeke and the guys,” Josh says softly, looking away. He can still feel Cooper watching him, solving him.   
  
"Come with me, Josh. Who knows . . . maybe you'll meet someone special, and you two'll hit it off. At least for tonight.”  
  
Josh's eyebrows shoot up nearly to his hairline. Not only is that not his style, but even if it was, everyone on campus thinks Cooper's his boyfriend. Unless they're asking for fashion advice--or advice on how to please their own boyfriends--Daleman girls mostly leave Josh alone. Even some of the townies have heard the rumors.   
  
As a result, Josh hasn't had a date since Rachel broke up with him. That this doesn't bother him, nor does the fact that upwards of two thousand people think he's sleeping with his male roommate, has never seemed strange until now.  
  
There's a difference, he realizes, between an enlightened mind and long-repressed wishful thinking.  
  
“Someone special? At a frat party, Coop? I think I'll pass.” He can't keep avoiding Cooper's eyes without being totally obvious about it. He tries to free his hand and turn away altogether, meaning to busy himself with studying. But Cooper's stronger than he looks and isn't letting go.  
  
“Don't discount the frat party hook-up, Josh.” Something in his tone makes Josh brave enough to risk looking him him in the eye again. What he sees there is anxious, but direct and unmistakable. Challenging. ”You might get lucky.”  
  
Josh swallows, wishing his throat weren't so dry; but he picks up the gauntlet with shaking novice's hands. “You think so?”  
  
“Well . . . we could go to the party and find out. Or--” Cooper colors a little, grins a lot and suddenly, this is just  _Coop_ , not some blush-causing, nerves-inducing siren. He sways a little closer. “Or we could just stay here . . . and find out,” he says, his voice as dark and warm as his eyes.  
  
Josh studies his roommate closely, tries not to blush or stammer as Cooper's hand lands once more on his chest and he's studied in turn.  
  
Finally he reaches up to remove Cooper's glasses--noting the shiver that results when his fingers graze soft skin--and places them carefully back on the night table.  
  
“I don't really feel like going out tonight,” he admits as Coop plucks at the hideous sweater. The faint pressure of those fingers breaks him out in goosebumps.  
  
"Me neither." And Coop  _smiles_  when Joshs's hands settle decisively on his waist, both of them leaning toward the other.  
  
No matter how close they get--and they're pretty close right now, getting closer with every millisecond--Josh supposes he'll never have Cooper  _totally_  figured out. But for the first time since since the school year started, they're on the same wavelength.   
  



End file.
